My son was killed in my arms, my husband beside me – a Gaza mother’s testimony

Ahmed and Zakariya Abu Watfa

Asil Hamad writes in The Palestine Chronicle on 27 May 2025:

My name is Asil Mahmoud Hamad, and I am from Gaza. I had a family of four: myself, my husband, Ahmed Abu Watfa, and our two children—Zakariya, who was 6 years old, and Yahya, who is 4.

We were living a peaceful, beautiful life, but suddenly, war forced us out of our home into an area designated as a humanitarian zone. We took only a bottle of water and a loaf of bread, thinking the situation would last no more than a week. Now, a year later, we are still living in a tent on the street—and it has cost us everything we had.

Our first shock came when we learned that our home had been destroyed. We were constantly facing death, moving from one place to another under heavy bombardment, always fearing for our lives while struggling to find food and water.

On January 21, 2024, around 10 PM, while we were displaced in Mawasi Khan Younis near Al-Khair Hospital, the bombing suddenly intensified, and buildings around us collapsed. My children were sleeping, but they woke up terrified from the blasts. We carried them and rushed to Al-Khair Hospital, believing it would be safer. But unexpectedly, Israeli occupation forces raided the hospital after shelling its gate, and they began shooting indiscriminately.

My sons, Zakariya and Yahya, clung to me tightly, trembling with fear. As I held Zakariya in my arms, a bullet struck his leg—and then another hit his stomach. He breathed his last breath in my arms. He raised his hand, closed his eyes, and passed away.

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